Adios Facebook

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve wanted to rage and eff this week and go on a smoking/drinking binge.

But I don’t eff anything. I take it and I endure the pain. I haven’t had a single smoke since Thursday, and I’ve only had a total of four glasses of wine in the past four days (God I sound like an addict). I am slowly beginning to believe that cutting the clutter in your life will get you faster to your goal. Just to give everyone an inkling of how bad it is- imagine you tore the pages of your favorite book. Now every time you read it and get to that page, the ripping sound echoes through your head and resonates in your heart.

Yes, because my favorite book is an encyclopedia.

Anyway, back to cutting the clutter. I would like to believe I’m a fairly open person- I like to share my experiences with everyone around me. Whether I am comfortable sharing those experiences though, is another story. I usually share the food I eat, the friends I hang out with, and the wine I drink (there’s my life summed up in one sentence). Occasionally I’d share the cute puppy dog that fell asleep or the weirdly-dressed people on the streets of Asia. All of this sharing is either done on Facebook, Instagram or this blog; it’s mostly Facebook, though.

Facebook, oh Facebook- the social-media culprit of the 21st century. It has made people stop listening in class, walk into strangers; it has fired people from their jobs and prevented people from getting hired. Facebook is the modern-day scandal that everybody gossips about. Everyone I know (and I don’t know that many people) uses Facebook to post viral articles, keep in touch with friends, share their lives, make big announcements, etc. But you know what? I think there is an alternate motive behind their existence on this website, and that is to stalk and be stalked.

I’ve certainly done both… Let’s not go into the details of the extent of my stalking, but I have posted pictures and wanted to see how many likes I got. Each time I get a like, my confidence goes up.

*GASP* Am I the first to say this out loud? It gets worse. On my birthday, I would see the total number of birthday comments I received and compare it to other people’s birthday posts as well. Tchyeah. I know it’s pathetic. I did say in my last post that I was an attention-seeker right? (Note the ‘was’). A year or more ago, in order to reduce this pathetic-ness, I decided to make everything private. I made the tagged pictures and statuses of me private; I also made my wall private. It was hard to deal with at first because I wasn’t used to the change (even though it didn’t really affect me), but it definitely felt better over time as I realized that nobody really notices the change on your Facebook.

It wasn’t because I didn’t want other people to see what I had going on in my life (I would never put anything private on Facebook); it was because I didn’t want to think about what other people were thinking about when they looked at my wall (inception?). Honestly though, I go on people’s Facebook pages to see how they are doing. A simple wall post or Facebook message is too hard for people to send nowadays (because trust me, I’ve tried), so I have resorted to- if we really have to put a term to it- stalking them instead. But then I realized there are really only a handful or two of people who I actually secretly care about who bother to put their lives on Facebook (most of them really do have a life, unlike me, and don’t post every single moment of their lives on Facebook). The rest, I stalk for my own amusement or for envy because their lives just look so much better than mine.

There’s one girl who goes to a Performing Arts school and performs on Broadway during her summer and now she’s in South America for study abroad. There’s this other girl who is my age who has the cutest baby boy ever. And these two other girls who are engaged. #drinkup

At the risk of getting liver damage, I decided to disable my Facebook account. Just kidding. The real reason is, after my last blog post, I realized how much of a distraction Facebook was. I have my good days and my bad days, but it got to the point where I was clicking the Facebook button on my bookmark bar every 10 minutes if I had nothing to do. If I spent the time stalking the guy who I went to high school with, who graduated Cornell and went on to have a pro soccer career in Austria, on applying to jobs, I probably would have applied to five jobs by now.

Research shows that people quit Facebook because of privacy and ethical concerns. I call bullfuckingshit. Most people who quit Facebook are young adults; they are old enough to choose what information to put on their page. I bet you they quit Facebook because they either can’t stand the “social pressure”, in which case they are committing “virtual identity suicide” (basically there is a lack of self control), or they believe that Facebook is a distraction towards whatever they are doing at that moment in their lives (which is the reason that the people I know stop using Facebook).

Ryan Gosling calls it too

Take it from me- when you are trying to focus on loving yourself and being the best version of yourself, any kind of social media is self impairing, especially Facebook. When it all comes down to it, 98% of the reason you’re on Facebook is to give yourself an ego boost; the other 2% can be split into keeping in touch with people and/or just having a Facebook page because everyone else has one, which would put you back in that 98%. So really, it’s a 99:1 ratio. You know all those likes you get on your picture or status updates? That feeling of confidence and importance you get? That’s temporary. It goes away with the snap of your fingers, and when it goes away, you don’t even feel it. You’ll only remember the satisfactory feeling when you get another like and another like; these likes are deceptive. They’re not real. You don’t need other people to like the content on your page to feel confident. It should be the other way around- your posts should exude so much confidence that people have to like it.

So. That is the reason I disabled Facebook. It was a useless distraction (some distractions are useful), and it was impeding my growth. There is absolutely nothing on my Facebook page (or anybody else’s for that matter) that can help me become a better person.

Post navigation

8 thoughts on “Adios Facebook”

Well said! Amusingly so, too. Facebook is definitely a useless distraction. I post very little on mine at all. I’m basically in that tiny 2%. Good on you for saying enough is enough and rage-quitting like that woman flipping tables. That does look like fun, too. And cutting clutter is a useful thing, so well done.

You have good self control then! When I don’t have access to Facebook (like when I’m in China), I’m okay with not posting. But once I do get access to it, it becomes an addiction. That woman is Teresa from The Real Housewives of NJ haha. I though it was hilarious because she emotes exactly what I wanted to do! Thanks for the encouragement though, it really helps.

Taking away your access to it is a good idea then. It doesn’t sound like you will miss it. It’s just a bit habitual when it is readily accessible. I can understand that, and I think Facebook and most forms of social media is like that for a lot of people. I don’t know how good my will power is, I just don’t care for it. Haha. Sometimes flipping tables is a good release. I say just do it. It’ll feel better than logging onto Facebook.

Thanks for dropping by. I plan on taking at least a month- maybe more- break from Facebook. Oh and I’m not a smoker smoker, I only smoke socially. So I decided to give that up too. Now it’s just ice cream and..more ice cream.

I feel like I’ve fallen into every single facebook stereotype at one point or another… but it’s very true that it can sabotage your ambition and damage your self-confidence. Ever since I started blogging I have like zero time for facebook… which has definitely proved to be a good thing! I’ve taken month/months long breaks in the past but I always “go back”… (such an addict). It seems easier to just taper myself off and replace it with more important and worthwhile things…like blogging about my REAL life and not just uploading photos of what I’m having for lunch ;)

I love sharing what I had for lunch on FB! I am kinda doing it on here too BUT it’s healthy and also linked to my workouts (my pathetic attempt at becoming healthy). I wish I could have a blog for everything- music, food, books, music. Is that too much? Anyway, life without FB is interestingly normal. I thought it would be like cutting an arm off, but it’s more like getting a paper cut that’ll heal?

That makes sense! And yep– I know the feeling of wanting all different blogs… so I just mish mash it all together and hope for the best ;) I too need to eat and live more healthfully. I keep getting sick oooover and oooover, it’s killin’ me!